News

Hart: lack of English players in the Premier League is not hurting national squad

Safe hands: Joe Hart claims England have a ‘wealth of talent’ following defeats by Italy and Uruguay (Richard Heathcote)

JOE HART has yet to fully experience the kind of “terrible summer” that Steven Gerrard had warned his teammates would follow an ignominious World Cup exit, but he knows what is in store. “It’s going to be really difficult,” the England goalkeeper said. “The World Cup will be everywhere, no matter where we are in the world, and it will be a constant reminder of where we could have been.”

Hart sampled a little of that bitter aftermath following the disappointment in South Africa in 2010, but back then he was a junior member of the squad, a 23-year-old third-choice goalkeeper, and a beneficiary of the new start that followed. Four years on, he is one of the senior players, wheeled out to face the media in Rio De Janeiro yesterday following the team’s elimination, facing awkward questions about whether his own club typify some of English football’s problems.